DAVAO CITY, Philippines—Even as artificial intelligence’s speed, low cost and conversational tone make it an increasingly popular first stop for health questions, a Department of Health official is urging young people to consult doctors when symptoms require assessment, treatment or referral.
Dr. Jethri Cruz, medical officer IV in the DOH Health Research Division, said the growing public interest in health concerns is encouraging, particularly as mental health draws greater attention.
But Cruz emphasized that professional consultation remains essential because treatment may require a physician’s intervention, including referrals to psychologists or prescriptions for medication.
Those services are available through hospitals and other health care facilities, he said.
For Owen Teleron, a third-year student at Ateneo de Davao University, convenience is the draw.
AI answers questions about symptoms quickly and offers step-by-step suggestions, he said, making it easier to get immediate guidance than to wade through lengthy online articles. He also finds the exchange emotionally reassuring.
“It is easy to communicate with AI and it sympathizes with my situation making me feel like I have an actual companion,” Teleron told Davao Today in a mix of Filipino and English.
That accessibility makes it tempting to turn to AI whenever symptoms appear, he said.
“The more I get used to it, the more I become dependent,” he said.
When a headache or fever strikes, he is initially more interested in easing the discomfort than in reading extensively about a possible underlying condition or consulting a doctor, he added.
Cost is another factor. The Philippines Statistics Authority reported that household out-of-pocket payments accounted for 41.2% of the country’s current health expenditure in 2025, with total health expenditure (THE) reaching P1.87 trillion that year.
Teleron, budgeting limited money as a student, described the difficulty of managing health needs; his account ends before he fully explains the concern.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that generative AI tools can produce false, inaccurate, biased, or incomplete health information, potentially putting people at risk when they rely on those responses to make medical decisions.
In its 2024 guidance on the ethics and governance of large multimodal models, WHO identified patient-guided uses, including investigating symptoms and treatment, as one application of generative AI, and cautioned that responses can appear authoritative even when they contain errors.
The organization called for safeguards, expert oversight, and appropriate governance to ensure that AI technologies are used safely and responsibly.
For users, that means an AI-generated response should not be treated as a confirmed diagnosis or a substitute for professional assessment. (davaotoday.com)
